Shanghai should aim for 2028 Olympics, say attention-craved officials

After seeing the endless stream of positive stories to come from the Beijing Games in 2008 (just kidding) the heads of China’s best city have gotten a bit jealous. Shanghai city officials have decided that a piddling World Expo is just not enough to put the city on the world stage, and they want to get themselves an Olympics.Hosting the Olympics would give Shanghai a chance to clean itself up, crack-the-fuck-down on all sorts of pesky social problems (see: the migrant workers who were utterly screwed by the 2008 games), and—the biggest reason of all—get attention, attention, attention. South China Morning Post reports that city officials, feeling a bit neglected by international tourism, have gotten themselves all excited about the possibilities:

Representative Wang Xiaoshu, speaking at the second meeting of the 12th Shanghai Municipal People’s Political Consultative Congress – the municipality’s top political advisory body, said Shanghai would have to take “great action that will make the world notice” to increase its international influence […]Wang suggested that the city bid for the Olympics in 2028 as a warm-up to the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China a year after. […]“If Shanghai makes a bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics, the bidding process, and Shanghai’s transformation and upgrade … will help raise the quality of society, culture and ecology [in the city],” [Wang] said.

God, the way that local officials are pulling for the games, you’d think that they might get huge kickbacks or something if the offer went through, or they’re just really deeply invested in the Olympic spirit. And kickbacks.